Bill Allowing Police to Use Less-Lethal Weapons, Including Blast Balls, Moves Forward

Proposed amendments that would restrict the use of blast balls and provide a private right of action for those injured by police weapons failed to progress.

By Erica C. Barnett

The Seattle City Council's public safety committee advanced legislation to formally approve an amended version of the Seattle Police Department's "interim policy" on the use of so-called less-lethal weapons, such as pepper spray and blast balls for crowd control, after rejecting a half-dozen amendments from Councilmember Cathy Moore that would place some restraints on SPD's use of such weapons. Bob Kettle, Rob Saka, and Council President Sara Nelson all voted to advance the legislation, which has been fast-tracked after years of inaction by the city, while Moore voted no and Hollingsworth, who was silent for most of the meeting, abstained.

I previewed some of the amendments that failed today in December.

The legislation, which the full council will take up again repeals a 2021 law governing SPD’s use of less-lethal weapons that SPD has never followed, instead creating its own “interim policy” that does not specifically restrict or bar police from using any less-lethal weapons. (The 2021 law replaced a total ban on less-lethal weapons that the federal district judge overseeing the consent decree, James Robart, enjoined earlier that year).

The council adopted a few changes to the bill that Kettle added as part of his "chair's amendment," which says that SPD can't use blast balls—rubber grenades that move and explode unpredictably and can cause serious, even life-threatening injuries—unless an on-scene commander has approved their use and a crowd qualifies as an "unlawful assembly" where "unlawful behavior within or of a crowd cannot be controlled through intervention strategies" short of police use of force, according to a matrix in SPD's interim policy.

Kettle's amendment also says that police officers from other jurisdictions called in to provide "mutual aid" during mass events in Seattle "must agree to follow the command and control of the on-scene SPD Incident Commander," but does not go as far as a failed Moore amendment that would have prohibited SPD from deployong officers from other cities who refused to comply with SPD's crowd control policies. Kettle said he thought that amendment would cause other police departments to refuse to help Seattle in the future, because their city attorney "would likely recommend, for legal considerations, for legal exposure, not to comply with a request for mutual aid."

And it would require SPD to let the council know any time they add a novel less-lethal weapon to their arsenal, a toothless version of an earlier proposal that would have required council approval before SPD could use brand-new weapons for crowd control.

Moore offered several amendments to limit the use of blast balls, but none passed; Rob Saka said he would have supported one Moore amendment to "require that blast balls be deployed only when directed away from people, underhand, at a distance of at least 10 yards" if it wasn't for the word "underhand"; SPD Assistant Chief Tyrone Davis argued that police may sometimes need to throw blast balls overhanded, like a baseball, to directly "reach those people" who might be throwing frozen bottles of water or other "implements" during a protest—exactly the opposite of the way the Community Police Commission said blast balls should be deployed.

Moore's other amendments, including one written by Councilmember Alexis Mercedes Rinck to reinstate a private right of action for people injured or otherwise harmed by less-lethal weapons, also failed; Kettle said it might create an "incentive" for people to file claims at the city. The private right of action would have allowed individuals to claim up to $10,000 in damages.

In an aside, Saka said that prior to a recent visit to SPD's Tukwila firing range, where he and Kettle watched a demonstration of blast balls, he tried to get approval to be subjected to a blast ball directly, but was unsuccessful. "Being a military veteran" and attending the 2020 protests on Capitol Hill personally, Saka said, he'd been subjected to all kinds of weapons, but not blast balls. "I made the request, and the executive declined my request," Saka said. (The mayor's office told PubliCola Harrell did not personally convey this to Saka). Even so, he said, conflicting expert testimony had convinced him that barring cops from throwing blast balls in the air was "too prescriptive for my personal liking and comfort."

Kettle, like Saka, brought up his military experience, saying he was fortunate to have served in Iraq at a unit whose military prison, Camp Cropper, was "well resourced," with plenty of officers on the ground.

"As you know, in detention prisons, at Abu Ghraib, a lot of bad things happened because of the underdeployment," Kettle said. "Because we were a CIA-DIA unit along with Australian members as well, we were the best resourced unit probably in the country, so that operation was done well and done ethically with great leadership."

Joy Hollingsworth abstained during the vote, saying only that she was more focused on hiring more officers and that "this was not a priority of mine."